Frontal cortex emesis between novels.

What did they ever do to game designers?

I found myself chanting “Die, frog, die!” for the fourth time playing this stupid game I have on my phone to stave off existential angst.

And this is very uncharacteristic of me, because I’m quite fond of frogs. Or rather, I have no particular quarrel with frogs. They have injured neither family or friend, and they have yet to create a site with pop up ads.

But in taking a mental inventory of my frog rage, I realized that they are the mortal enemy in several games I play or have played in the past 8 years. Gone are the golden days of Frogger, where one used to smack the side of the game cabinet if a truck squashed your precious Highway Crossing Frog.

There’s a game where a frog spits deadly balls at you. Another where he steals your vegetables. Another where she freezes your bubbles. And so on. Frogs are villains now.

We are at peak ranidaphobia, which is a fancy word for racism against frogs. Do not confuse it with gallophobia.

I then remember the plague of frogs that Moses wrought upon Egypt via the will of God. That’s kind of a weird thing to curse somebody with, at least to us modern folk. “Oh noes, frogs! What’re they gonna do, ribbit at me? Eat flies out of my house? Please, anything but that!”

But of course, too much of anything is awful, as the Australians found out in recent years when their prime minister urged citizens to beat them with golf clubs and cricket bats.

Probably while screaming “Die, frog, die!”

I wonder what would have happened if the Egyptians suffered a plague of puppies? So many tiny tails wagging, such joyous yipping!